


Limbo

by ArcadeGhostAdventurer



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Ghosts, I wonder who that is., M/M, Minor Violence, Mystery, Pre-Relationship, Spooky Fic 4 Spooky Season, There is a poltergeist in an old Stark Manor.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:08:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27280213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArcadeGhostAdventurer/pseuds/ArcadeGhostAdventurer
Summary: In all reality, Tony could go and buy himself a new house. He could buy himself ten houses. Any house in the world. Yet, he wanted the one with a run-down lab and 34 cases of “work accidents”.Build it himself? Oh, he could. He would.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 16
Kudos: 40





	Limbo

**Author's Note:**

> I said! Spooky fic! For spooky season!!
> 
> This one was a bit of a throwaway project to feel like I can still finish things. Very mild little mystery. A bit of a haunting going on. Nothing to worry about.
> 
> Dear [five4fighting](https://archiveofourown.org/users/five4fighting) [tar!] Beta'ed this and told me it was good enough to YEET!
> 
> Now, you should definitely comment bc I eat comments. If you can't find something to say; which happens if, like me, you have a Jell-O instead of a brain, you can leave me [kawaii emojis](https://kawaiiface.net/) because I love them. And eat them also. Yes.

The house was in shambles, much like his life. But it has always been easier for Tony to fix material things. Physical things that he could hold in his hands and tinker with. Things he could throw money at and replace. There was a certain grounding quality to it. 

Things; he could understand. Oh well.

He walked through the halls, opened doors when he could, broke the keys in the locks when he couldn’t. They were his doors and they were his keys. He got up on the roof. Contemplated jumping down. Went back inside.

Pepper would be angry. He shook his head, she would be devastated. Probably. Sad, at least. But that was why things didn’t work out. Angry? Because he died?  _ That _ was the first thing that came to his mind? They cared for each other. That meant something. Still, not in the way the other would want to be cared for.

So he had left the Miami mansion to her. Came here, to renovate a house long empty. But he was good with fixing this kind of thing. Everywhere his eyes laid, he saw things to be done. Work. Plans. Carpets, wallpaper... A rotting supporting column. It had to be completely taken down. 3D scanning first, though; to make the crown molding exactly the same. They would have to place temporary supports. Here and here and there. His hands touched the approximate spots where the beams would go.

Tomorrow, the construction workers would be here. And the work would begin. That, Tony could do.

\--

The summer house had not been Maria’s favorite location. Tony could remember whenever they were here, his father would disappear almost completely. And he could remember his mother being especially displeased with him, more than the regular workaholic disappearances. 

Frankly, Tony had always thought his father had a mistress that his mother knew of. 

But the construction team in charge of reconnaissance called him two days later, asked him if he knew about the laboratory down below. 

Tony had not.

He told them to carry on as planned, not to bother with the lab. Who knew what Howard had in there. There were no records of the place. The recon team reported that it seemed empty, with no apparent danger. No leaking chemicals or exposed electrical lines. It clearly hadn’t been abandoned but rather packed up.

A pet project, possibly. A whim.

Then came the accidents.

\--

So many things had happened simultaneously. Seemingly inconsequential, but that view would change in hindsight. Which had a habit of only coming after things had happened already.

A wooden chest fell onto a construction crew member, breaking several ribs and causing heart failure. He died in the ambulance before it could reach the hospital. 

In the meantime, another one went into the laboratory to snoop around, barely survived a badly installed file cabinet, found papers that were left from the Second World War. And of course, sold them to a newspaper. They did not make as much impact as the regular, run-off-the-mill, working-for-a-famous-billionaire traitor hoped. It was some unmemorable correspondence between Howard and Peggy Carter. Some letters from Dr. Abraham Erskine. 

But it made two things clear: One; the construction crew needed to be weeded out. Two; the lab was not as inconspicuous as it first seemed.

One seemingly clear conclusion would be that some part of the supersoldier program had been conducted under this house. At least it would explain Howard’s clock-work disappearances and Maria’s reluctant acceptance of the matter.

The only issue was that, that didn’t make sense. They had purchased the house in Tony’s early childhood. Long after the Second World War. Which could mean the lab had been to recreate the experiment. Which could mean… Anything, really.

\--

In the closed and limited space of the house, there came a moment in which everything that could explicably fall had fallen.

That was when the throwing began.

\--

Mass hysteria. Collective illusions. The footage of an electrician, who was supposed to be rerouting the electrical layout, stabbing his own hand with the screwdriver over and over again.

Whatever it was, it had to stop.

Over the several weeks, as the most necessary renovations were made, accidents had piled up. They had proof, the security cameras did not lie. No one wanted to work on the house anymore. Tony wasn’t going to keep them there.

The project manager had thrown the signed NDAs on his face, naturally, telling him, “If you want the fucking house, build it yourself.”

In all reality, Tony could go and buy himself a new house. He could buy himself ten houses. Any house in the world. Yet, he wanted the one with a run-down lab and 34 cases of “work accidents”.

Build it himself? Oh, he could. He would.

The logical part of his brain told him it wasn’t worth it. He should just forget about it. Leave it to cockroaches and mice and moths. But the other side- the part of his brain that kept him alive with a car battery hooked up in his chest- the part that made him crawl in the sand, burned, battered, dried up and delirious, told him he had to fix this. This thing, he had to make it work. Tony felt like everything would slip away if he gave up on this house.

Most probably not true. Still. His house, his rules.

\--

He got out of the Audi, dressed in maybe the rattiest clothes he had. It wasn’t that he was afraid to soil his better attire, but in these, unconsciously, Tony felt like a version of him that could make things work. A Tony that could fix things and be fixed by others. A man that could understand, and maybe, be understood in return.

Threadbare jeans. A flannel. Under it, a ratty t-shirt. And Gucci sunglasses. Tony Stark. Fixer-upper extraordinaire.

Leaning on the wall to the right of the entrance, his mattress was already delivered. And the coffee machine. The house was basically livable in Tony’s standards.

Stepping through the foyer with his bag on his shoulder, the house seemed like a badly imitated nightmare of his childhood years. It both looked like it used to when he was a kid, and looked nothing like it. Everything where it should be; every color and pattern wrong.

He took a tentative step as if he was stepping into someone else’s house. He touched the newly laid wallpaper. The support column; once crumbling, now remade.

He took out the blue patterned, fake china vase, the only object he had brought with him. Tony had bought it on the way here, for two dollars from a garage sale. He put it on the first step of the stairs leading up.

Nothing moved.

\--

He got to work. Carefully, almost reverently, he got to work.

He had been a kid who made his robot so that it hung its pincher in shame when it did something wrong. If he had turned into a man who talked to some cables as he changed them, no one could blame him. He had grown up lonely and a man had to talk.

“Now, don’t you worry, I’m gonna be reconnecting these in a second, darling. Haven’t been used in a while, yeah? Don’t you feel useless, I’m sure we’ll find a good use for all those geriatric electrical knick-knack downstairs. I’ll bring Dum-E and U in and you’ll have this little, tangled wire and motherboard family.”

Whatever. There was no one to hear anyway.

Took him two full days, but now there was reliable electricity going down to the lab. He ate gas station food, sitting on his toolbox in the empty living room. Slept on a hundred-something-thousand-dollars Hästens mattress thrown haphazardly on the floor. It was freeing.

During these two days, nothing moved.

The vase stood where Tony had placed, already lightly collecting dust. He wasn’t pulled down the stairs, knocking his head several times and developing a concussion. He heard no sound other than his own constant rambling. He got up onto the balcony, didn’t feel an inexplicable urge to jump off. Well, not anymore than he normally did.

He turned on the circuit breakers. Made his way down.

Under a dim yellow light, the lab seemed friendly even in its empty form. Made well before the time modern designs and minimalism came to favor, it kept its almost sci-fi-ish allure. This was the kind of lab Tony snuck into when he was a kid. The magic of the yellow lighting; it had not been broken.

He opened the file cabinets, piling up all he could find onto the empty metal counters. His hands itched to open them, read them. He had the luxury of just breaking the locks; a privilege the letter pilfering construction worker didn’t have. There was more than he thought. Some sealed with rope and wax, held together in bundles. 

All of them classified.

He piled them up in high, unstable columns. Precarious. Swaying in the barest hint of a breeze as Tony's hand moved past. 

He left them as such. Went back upstairs to sleep. 

\--

Tony took his time next morning. He made his coffee. Opened a pack of Lunchables because he could. Assembled all of them before eating. Because he could. 

Then made another coffee. Then made his way downstairs. 

Every single file stood, just as he left it. 

This could mean two things. 

One; his first instinct had been right. Possibly. There was indeed nothing wrong with the house. There was nothing _ in _ the house. Whatever he saw in those videos, it all had to have an explanation. In this case, it was possible that the explanation was a scientific one. 

But that brought other questions. If it was the construction company's work, why did they go to such elaborate lengths? Too many casualties to claim it was to get compensation. 

If someone else, who? Why? 

If it was collective hysteria, then why? How? Just because of that one fallen chest?

Or. Two: Tony hadn't done anything that caused the- Whatever it was; entity, poltergeist, spirit, ghost… The thing to get angry. Yet.

Though the electrical worker who was supposed to change the lines had been… Affected. Not Tony. He had done basically the same thing the man had set out to do.

So why?

Tony took a sip of his coffee. Looked at the mountain of files in front of him.

Got to work. 

\--

In under thirty minutes, Tony realized he was extremely lucky that whichever worker had broken into these files had found some letters and not anything else. 

After four hours of reading, he realized he was fucked regardless.

Howard had a work ethic. The problem was, most of the time, this work ethic did not see eye to eye with normal-people-ethic.

Howard’s obsession with Captain America was no secret to anyone who had the misfortune to be around him more than two seconds. He had created the machine after all, the one that injected the participants with Dr. Erskine’s formula. Though he hadn’t really been interested in making more super soldiers. Tony remembered him talking about how they had been lucky, so very lucky with the Captain. He had believed the good Captain could be the solution to everything. Anything. If he could come back.

He would always say, “If we could bring him back.” Tony had always thought he was talking about finding him. After the plane crash in the Arctics, he had devoted a lot of time to finding him. Then the expeditions had dwindled down. 

Not because they had given up though. No. Howard had found Captain America.

He had found him. And brought him back here.

To this house.

Tony sat there. No movement. Nothing. He put down the papers. Looked around the lab. Papers and dossiers were strewn all around. For a second, he thought that the cleaners were going to have a lot of trouble matching the papers to the right files. Then he remembered he couldn’t show any of this to anyone. Then he remembered he was all alone. His coffee, untouched, had gone cold. He downed in one go, it didn’t help at all.

He cleaned his throat, “Captain?”

No sound.

Tony scrambled suddenly, moving to the middle of the room. Pushing the papers aside, he pressed his ear to the floor. There, he could hear, the artificial humming of some kind of machine running. Over his own heartbeat, erratic, there was another periodic sound coming. A steady huffing. The ventilator.

“Captain?”

No sound.

Suddenly, very firmly, very clearly a hand pressed right against Tony’s chest. And then the sensation disappeared. 

Curled up in the fetal position, Tony tried not to let fear consume him. He failed. What was it? What did it want? What the hell was going on? Why was it hostile to the construction workers? Why not to him? His mind tried to make sense of everything. And failed. Didn’t one have to be dead to become a ghost? If it was truly who Tony thought it was, at that. But it was also quite possible that the life support had failed. Pushing air into dead lungs wouldn’t make them alive.

Oh God. Had Howard found the corpse of Captain America? Had he been trying to bring him back to life?

Fuck. 

He had cut the electricity to the lab when changing the wiring. At least three or four hours of no electricity. No life support.

But no. This- This ghost had been around before that. Had he been truly dead then? What was the chance that he had been alive? That he was still alive? Could it mean...

Tony sat up, pressed his trembling hands onto the cold floor. He knew if he tried to stand up, his legs wouldn’t work. His head was a mess. His head was filled with cotton. He couldn’t think. He needed to think. Think.

Papers. 

With words on them.

Everywhere.

He found some of the useless ones. The bills, the letters, unnecessary notes. He ripped up the words. Yes. No. Maybe. I know. The “Don’t know,” part of, “We don’t know.”

Now with an aim, his hands were steadier. He could solve this. Fix this. This house. This lab. This ghost. It could make no sound. But movement was possible. And Tony was not buying an ouija board. No sir.

With his ripped up words in front of him, Tony took a deep breath. Feeling a bit silly for a man who had just had the scare of his life, he called out, “Captain? Are you there?”

_ Yes _ , moved.

Oh God. Oh fuck! He was here. Was he? Should Tony be believing a fucking ghost who murdered three and wounded others just because he was- 

Too late. 

On the other side of his brain, self-preservation was long thrown away. Possibly, already had made its merry way to a trash collecting site. It- He could not only understand, but also could respond. So he could think. But he couldn’t make sounds. What was it? Some form of energy? Would this prove humans had souls? Would Tony be able to evade eternal hell if he started doing good deeds like… Three decades ago?

“How long have you been here?”

The single numbers moved,  _ 1979. _

So, well after the crash and the end of the war. Tony had been nine. Surely, he was dead then. Better the check.

“Are you dead?”

_ Between. _

“Is there a life support-” Tony thought, trying to find a simpler way of asking, “Can you breathe by yourself?”

_ Yes. Maybe. _

“Your heart is beating?”

_ Yes. _

“Then why are you-” Tony sighed, frustrated. Surely, he didn’t know. He had to find a way out. For both of them.

“My- Howard, he tried to bring you back, yes?”

_ Yes. _

“Is the problem that you’re, you know, out of your body?”

Two words moved:  _ No. Believe. _

Howard didn’t believe it. Howard didn’t believe him. Of course. Howard was a blind man with two 20/20 eyes and it just had gotten worse as the years went by. Tony could count ten instances just over the top of his head. He hadn’t believed that Tony had built Dum-E himself either, had asked him which of his employee’s time he had stolen. Of course he didn’t believe it.

As he was trying to come to terms with that statement, more words moved.

_ Haven’t. See. Body. Frozen. You. Must. Open. _

“Wait,” Tony reeled momentarily. “Wait, open? The- The floor? When I don’t- When  _ you _ don’t know if you’re alive or not?”

Open? Why did this sound like he was about to open Pandora's Box? What were the chances of him unleashing something actually malicious? Would Captain America be malicious? Was it really Captain America down there?

_ Must. Know. Alive. Dead. _

“I’m- Wait. WAIT.” In a sudden flash of brain activity, Tony had a much better idea. “You must wait, ok? I’ll be back in just a second. I just- There is a better way. Just hang in there Captain.”

He ran upstairs. As he hoped, there were still a couple of bags of plaster dust in a corner. He grabbed one and sprinted back to the lab. He dumped it all on the floor, choking in the cloud that rose. This shit was probably toxic to breathe in but oh well, wasn’t the worst thing he ever snorted. Probably.

True to his reputation, the Captain was a smart man. Ghost. Whatever. He got to writing. Tony found himself entranced by the lines appearing on the white dust; delicate and thin.

_ Howard found me in ice. _ Erase.  _ I wasn’t aware of my surroundings at that time. I think. _ Erase. _ It came slowly. He didn’t believe me. And he never let me thaw. _ Erase.  _ He thought I would surely die then. _ Erase.  _ But even death would be kinder than this. You must open. _

“No! Wait. Let you thaw? To die? You’re still frozen down there, oh my God. Seriously? There must be-”

_ PLEASE. _

In an instant, there was a flurry of movement. The papers flew around. One folder flew right beside Tony’s head. For a second, he felt the same fear that had grabbed him when he had felt the hand on his chest. The house shook. In the distance, Tony heard the vase he had brought when he first came here fall. He braced for a hit. For anything.

Then as if cut by a knife, everything settled. In front of him, embossed on the white dust, the word remained.

_ PLEASE. _

Tony looked at the singular word. He tried to imagine. Unable to move. Unable to do anything but be absolutely aware of everything… Then the word was erased.

_ I’m sorry _ . Erase.  _ I am not a man like this _ . _ Wasn’t.  _ Erase.  _ But there are things to this thing I am that I cannot control. Whatever _ \- Erase.  _ Whenever I feel something, things happen around me.  _ Erase.  _ I don’t want to remain like this. Howard tried. _ Erase.  _ There is no other way. Please. _

Tony looked at the words. And looked. And looked. He needed a drink. He needed several drinks. 

He could have them. After.

Sitting up, he willed his legs to move, “Alright. Tell me Cap, how do I open this thing.”

\--

It was a slow going process, melting a six foot block of ice in a lab with no heating.

Tony had expected a freeze burned body. A disfigured face. Rotting from all the years the man had spent in the Arctic.

He had expected to open the cooling unit and find some kind of thing that would finally make him see that the Captain America his father and a whole nation sang praises for had been, in the end, just a man.

Looking at him, sleeping in the ice, he could see how just one man could turn the tides of war. Hell, poltergeist or not, he could tell Tony to jump out of the window and he probably would.

He kept his thoughts to himself.

The free-floating part of Captain kept him company for a while. Thanked him. Profusely. Tony asked him where he would like to be buried into. Captain kindly asked if he could be cremated. He wouldn’t be able to make it into a memorial burial site, not with a fuck ton of explaining. But his ashes could, discreetly. And even then, if Tony tried, they would probably confiscate his body for research.

Like hell Tony was going to allow that. 

Captain thanked for that also. For allowing him this one last wish. 

His presence slowly dwindled down. Words on the white plaster dust became faint, then completely disappeared. Tony broke his vigil to get a dustpan for the plaster and a mop for the water. He sat there, wrapped in a blanket. Only stood occasionally to mop the floors. Then went back to his vigil. 

At some point, he went upstairs again. Realized it was daytime again. Made food. He went back to the lab, and went back to talking to himself as he ate. 

“I used to like history Cap. Not many believed it when I said that, obviously, being a tech-wiz and all but with Howard’s involvement and all, there was a time I was obsessed with the war era. Back then I was still looking up to him, well, kinda,” he took a bite. Chewed slowly. “But I’m realizing I don’t know much about, like, how life was like. I mean, ordinary things. Like, was fake cheese a thing back then? This plasticky thing?”

He drowned his sorrow in speaking about menial things and junk food as he waited by the corpse and mopped Arctic waters. Under the warm light of the underground lab, the Captain looked almost alive. Like there was almost color to his face.

His stillness belied it. 

\--

As all things, Tony’s wait ended too. The ice melted. The uniform that was still on the Captain started to dry at the edges. Now, Tony had planning to do. He had to call Pepper. Or maybe not. He had to find a way of contacting a crematory discreetly. Maybe forge an ID.

If push came to shove, he could just buy a cremation thingy. Hell, he could probably make one himself. Make a better one himself. But burning this body? Tony didn’t know if he could do that.

He understood what pushed Howard to the brink of insanity that caused him to keep the Captain frozen while he looked for a cure. A way of bringing him back. 

He stood up, put his blanket over the Captain’s body and turned around to leave.

No movement.

But a sound.

A light hissing. Like a gasp. Like. A breath.

Breathing.

Tony turned back around so quickly that he almost tripped over his own feet. Heedless of his knees banging on the hard floor, he was beside the Captain’s body.

Unmistakably, he was breathing.

He ripped back the blanket, shaking, “Fuck.”

Speech. Slurred, but audible and there,  _ there _ !

  
“Language,” _ a breath, _ “please.”


End file.
